For many years, I’ve hosted my blog on Orcsweb. I moved there about 5 years ago or so, after outgrowing webhost4life. Orcsweb is a huge supporter of the community and has offered free hosting to MVPs and MSFTies, so it seemed like a no brainer to go to a first class host at no charge. Orcs is also local (Charlotte, NC) and I know many of the great folks there. But, the time has come to move my blog to Windows Azure Web Sites (WAWS). (This switch, of course, should be transparen... [More]

I’ve written a lot of apps (and have used a lot of apps) so one thing I’m always on the lookout for is what is working when it comes to top apps – getting users, feedback, and ultimately monetizing your apps. The market is always changing and the trends are different in different app categories, and the key seems to be able to adapt quickly.
Pricing and Making Money
Games are completely different than productivity apps, which are entirely different than entertainment apps, just to na... [More]

A bit overdue, but I just realized I never really announced the APIMASH project we’ve been working on. It’s up on github. The purpose of the project is to illustrate how to go about constructing a mashup application from a variety of data sources. We’re adding to the project all the time, and have both Windows 8 and Windows Phone app starter kits to get you going. What makes the APIMASH concept so fun, to me, is that we’re consuming real-world data. Whether you us... [More]

In the last post, we looked at ways to separate content using different pieces of Windows Azure for the benefit of creating a more cost-effective solution using Windows Azure Web Sites (WAWS) and Windows Azure Storage for storing images and other binary/static files. Although we’re looking at this just for cost efficacy, frankly that approach just makes sense from an availability and performance aspect, too. Another fantastic service is Windows Azure Mobile Services (WAMS), but unsurprisingly, ... [More]

One of the great advantages of having a green field cloud-based infrastructure is being able tailor the app using specific features of the platform. Sometimes, cost isn’t an issue. But, many times – particularly for indie devs – it is. Scale isn’t the foremost concern here, and often times dependability isn’t, either. Rather, it’s flexibility and cost. In this post, I’m going to dissect a few ways to take advantage of Azure and save some coin in the process. Estimating Az... [More]

One of the most frequent questions/concerns I’m seeing in community is: what application changes do I need to consider for Windows 8.1 development? Is there anything I should be doing today in my Win8 apps to make it easy to move to 8.1 in the future? There’s a ton of great info that came out of the recent //build conference. In my opinion, the main design consideration to take into account with applications in Win8.1 is to handle multiple screen sizes and states effectively. ... [More]

This post details features used by Earthquake Explorer, a Windows 8 app that displays earthquake information on Bing maps. Earthquake Explorer was based off of the Earthquakes mashup starter kit on github. Read part 1 here. Read part 2 here. We left off Part 2 talking about creating a compelling live tile in Windows 8. This really is a must-do feature in Windows 8 – primarily because a live tile creates a more compelling app experience. It encourages the user... [More]

My latest DevRadio episode has been published – here are the details! Abstract: In today’s episode Brian Hitney demos for us the Messier Sky Object Explorer and Earthquake Starter Kits for your Windows 8 apps. Tune in as he walks us through both APIs and show us how easy it is get started building for Windows 8. Check out all the APIMASH Starter Kits here Download Earthquake APIMASH Starter Kit Download the Messier Sky Object Explorer APIMASH Starter Kit Next Steps: Step #1 – Downl... [More]

This post details features used by Earthquake Explorer, a Windows 8 app that displays earthquake information on Bing maps. Earthquake Explorer was based off of the Earthquakes mashup starter kit on github. Read part 1 here. In the first part, we created a Windows Azure Mobile Service to store data as a back end for our mashup. A big benefit of this approach is that it lets us filter/sort/query the data any way we’d like, and our application is now resilient against outages an... [More]

At long last! Our final installment to the series – check it out! About this Video: Wrapping up their “Using Windows Azure to Build Back-End Services for Windows 8 apps” series Brian Hitney , Andrew Duthie and Peter Laudati, as they showoff some useful tips and tricks around authentication for your Windows Azure Mobile Server based apps. Tune in as they enable persistent login for a mobile service, and then discuss how we can get additional information about users from the configur... [More]